Dalip Singh Saund
Congressman From India

V. CANDIDATE SAUND

In mid-November, 1955, one hundred friends from Riverside and Imperial
County gathered at Indio, California, and endorsed me as Democratic candidate
for Congress in the forthcoming 1956 election. I accepted the endorsement, and
from that day on I was an avowed candidate and there was no turning back. While
the meeting itself was a source of gratitude and satisfaction to me I realized
that these friends of mine had come only to pay a personal tribute. While they
were willing to give me all the support they possibly could, I knew they felt
deep in their hearts that there really wasn't much chance of my winning the
election and going to Congress.

The first big break in my candidacy came a month later. Mr. Phillips,
the incumbent congressman, a veteran of forty years of public service, in his
seventh term in the House of Representatives, announced that he would retire at
the end of his current term and not be a candidate for re-election. This threw
the race wide open. Within a month eight candidates had announced their
intention to run in the June primary, two Democrats and six Republicans.

Among the Republican candidates were a school principal,
a schoolteacher, a member of the Riverside City Council, a retired navy
admiral, and the scion of a highly respected pioneer family of landowners in
Riverside County, a man named Fred Eldridge. The sixth candidate was the
world-famous aviatrix Jacqueline Cochran Odlum, winner of many prizes in the
field of aviation, leader of the women fliers during World War II, and wife of
the multimillionaire financier, Floyd Odlum.

On the Democratic side were myself and a well-known Riverside County
attorney, Mr. Carl Kegley, a man active in California politics who at one time
had been a candidate for attorney general of the state of California on the
Democratic ticket.

At the start my campaign committee had an important decision to
make. Should my name appear on the ballot as "Dr." because I had a
Ph. D. degree, or "Judge" because I was a judge of the justice court? We
decided I should be listed as Judge D. S. Saund. Among my personal friends and
political associates I was known as Judge Saund, and it was considered proper
that I keep that title during the campaign. Also, since the first public office
to which I was elected after I became a citizen of the United States was judge
of the justice court, the title had a special meaning to me. Henceforth I was
known as Judge Saund, a candidate for Congress.

Cross filing was the rule in California and seven out of the eight
candidates had declared their intention to file on both the Democratic and
Republican tickets. Even before the 1956 campaign began things were humming
politically in the 29th Congressional District. All the candidates were very
active and confident and a lively campaign and a wide-open race seemed
assured. The prize was membership in the House of Representatives of the United
States of America, representing two large, sprawling counties in the unique,
colorful desert area of southern California.

The official party organizations, the Republican and Democratic Central
committees, were not permitted by law to endorse any candidate before the
primaries. But the unofficial party organizations among the Democrats, the
Democratic clubs, were anxious to hear the two Democratic candidates. Thus I
had plenty of opportunities to appear on the same platform with my opponent
before the different Democratic clubs of the two counties. The six Republican
candidates similarly appeared before the various Republican groups. It became
apparent that the voters would have a choice between eight candidates who
represented a wide range and variety of political opinion. There were
ultraconservative candidates on the Republican side and, on the Democratic
side, two liberals. On two occasions all eight candidates were invited to
appear on the same platform, and there I had a chance to meet my opponents in
person and find out just where they stood.

Before very long it was clear that the Republican race had narrowed
itself down to Mrs. Odlum and Fred Eldridge, and throughout the period
preceding the primary election I seemed to be the favorite on the Democratic
side. But then the primary campaign started to get extremely bitter in both the
Democratic and Republican camps.

My Democratic opponent began efforts to have me disqualified as a
candidate on the technical grounds that I had not been a citizen of the United
States for seven years. According to the Constitution, a man has to be
twenty-five years of age and a citizen for seven years before he can become a
member of the House of Representatives. My opponent filed a petition, first in
the Appellate Court and later in the Supreme Court of the state of California,
asking for an injunction enjoining the county clerks of Riverside and Imperial
counties from placing my name on the ballot. This gave me my first good break
in the campaign.

I was by this time quite well known throughout Imperial County, but I
was pretty much a complete stranger in so far as Riverside County was
concerned. I doubt that when I announced my candidacy in November, 1955, I
knew a hundred persons in Riverside County, and one of my big tasks was to
make my name known there, and quickly. With more than 80 per cent of the
registered voters of the entire 29th Congressional District, it was the main
arena of the political contest.

Anyone familiar with a political campaign knows what value an issue
such as the one my opponent raised is to a rival candidate who is completely
unknown. When he filed suit against me, it became front-page, headline news
in all the Riverside and Imperial County papers. Even if I could have afforded
it, I couldn't have bought that kind of publicity.

I was thus not in the least disturbed by my opponent's move. Besides, I
had familiarized myself thoroughly with the provisions of the Constitution and
was positive that I was eligible to run. If elected in November, 1956, I would
not take office until January, 1957, by which time I would have been a citizen
of the United States seven years and sixteen days.

I had no intention of spending any money fighting the case in the
courts. A very dear and close friend of mine, Mr. Mobley M. Milam, a young
Imperial County attorney, offered to appear with me in the Appellate Court,
which was sitting at Fresno in California's great Central Valley. We drove all
night from Westmorland to Fresno, appeared in court at nine o'clock the next
morning, and returned home the same day. Since my attorney friend did not
charge me any fee, that was the only discomfort and expense the suit involved
so far as I was concerned. First the Appellate Court and then the Supreme Court
of the state of California dismissed the petition on the grounds that the
California courts had no jurisdiction over the eligibility or qualifications of
members of the House of Representatives because the Constitution is explicit
that the sole judge of the qualifications of a member of the House of
Representatives is the House of Representatives itself.

On the day the case was filed, and again on the day of the hearing
before the Appellate Court, and then again when the Supreme Court acted, my
name was all over the front pages of every newspaper in the district. In
addition to the publicity, these cases turned out to be highly favorable to me
in another way. The American people believe in giving contestants an even
chance in any contest, political or otherwise, and they don't like it when one
of the contenders tries to have his opponent knocked out before he has a chance
to get into the ring. I had become a definite underdog and at no time, in my
opinion, is that a handicap in a political race.

As election time neared, my Democratic opponent became increasingly
violent in his attacks on me. He quoted passages from my book, My Mother,
India, quite out of context, and ran a virulent full-page ad in the
newspapers of both counties. In addition he attacked me severely in several radio
broadcasts. I paid little attention to these attacks, and in fact refused to
listen to the radio broadcasts. Indeed, the full-page ad was of such a nature
that the three leading daily papers in the district refused to print it on
grounds that it was libelous. My friends were angry and disturbed over all
this, but I couldn't let it bother me in the least. I had positively and
definitely made up my mind to present myself as a candidate for the high office
of congressman on my own merits and not say a word against my opponent. I thus
never felt the need nor the desire to answer his charges.

Later in the general election the Republican campaign also hit hard at
my being born in India. Every effort was made to make it appear that I was an
Indian, not an American. In newspaper ads I was not called D. S. Saund, but
Dalip Singh in big letters and Saund in small letters. This sort of practice
was widespread, but apparently it did not hurt my candidacy either in the
primary or general election.

In the primary election I won the Democratic nomination hands down with
a tremendous majority. Mrs. Odlum won the Republican nomination only by a close
margin from her runner up, Fred Eldridge, but she received a larger combined
Republican and Democratic vote than I did. She was in the lead and thus started
her campaign for the November general election with a fair assurance of
victory.

My friends and I decided that the key to a successful campaign lay in
finding and creating opportunities for me to be seen and heard in public by as
many people as possible in Riverside County. Barbecues seemed to be the
answer. With the cooperation of the different Democratic groups and my
supporters in the various communities of Riverside County, we began to sponsor
a series of free barbecues. The meat was furnished by my committee in Imperial
County, and my friends and neighbors in Westmorland prepared the barbecue and
hauled it fresh from the pit to the town where the barbecue rally was to be
held. The local Democratic clubs furnished the hall, the beans, the salad, the
coffee, and the buns. This sort of program proved very successful. We had
barbecue rallies in nearly a dozen communities in Riverside County. Thanks to
the joint efforts of the local Democratic clubs a good deal of enthusiasm was
aroused. Crowds ranged from two hundred and fifty to fifteen hundred and the
average was between three hundred and four hundred.

But the barbecue rallies in my behalf were peanuts compared to the one
big free barbecue which my opponent, Mrs. Odlum, staged in the Riverside County
fairgrounds in her home community of Indio. This event was widely advertised
and attracted a large crowd. Mrs. Odlum was, of course, a celebrity in her own
right, but she added other attractions, and among those who appeared on the
program at her barbecue were Bob Hope and Rin-Tin-Tin.

I had won the nomination of the Democratic party, but I faced a number
of formidable handicaps as I started the campaign. I was, in the first place,
running for Congress on the Democratic ticket in a district that had never
elected a Democrat to Congress in its entire history. My opponent was a
colorful, world-famous aviatrix as well as a diligent, hardworking, capable,
and imaginative campaigner. To give an illustration, on the day nominations
were filed in the two counties, my friends dutifully trudged about, circulating
the petitions to get the required number of signatures in an ordinary
way. Mrs. Odlum, however, took off in her private plane and made stops at
different towns and cities in both counties. Her supporters along with as many
reporters and photographers as they could round up met her at the airport,
where her petition was signed with great fanfare by prominent citizens of the
town.

In addition my opponent's campaign had a secret ingredient--money. Not
only did I lack this, but there was an acute shortage of rich supporters for my
cause. Mrs. Odlum, on the other hand, was the wife of one of the wealthiest men
in the country. Our Democratic party organization was very enthusiastic, but it
had been only recently organized. My opponent was the personal friend of the
President of the United States who in 1956 was at the height of his popularity.

Our campaign attracted nationwide publicity. Mrs. Odlum was a national
figure, a colorful personality with a Cinderella-like success story, while I was
a native of India, seeking a high office no one of my race had ever held. Time
magazine devoted a full-page article to the campaign in June, 1956; half of the
page was devoted to my opponent and half to me. Newspapers all over the United
States carried stories and national attention was focused on our particular
congressional battle. This brought national figures of both political parties
to the district. Vice President Nixon came to Riverside to speak for Mrs Odlum,
while the highly popular governor of Tennessee, Frank Clement, the keynote
speaker of the 1956 Democratic convention, gave a dramatic and eloquent
endorsement of my candidacy before an overflow Democratic rally at Riverside.

When we saw we lacked funds to buy space on commercial billboards,
always an expensive item in a political campaign, we made our own, using 4 x 8
foot sheets of plywood. The committee furnished these homemade billboards and
volunteers in the different towns in the district got permission from property
owners to place them on vacant lots in cities and strategic sites along the
highways and roads in the area. We had seventy-five signs printed reading ELECT
JUDGE SAUND in red letters on a blue background and the name SAUND stretching
from border to border. These were put up throughout the district and were
apparently quite effective. Being homemade, they attracted attention, and the
huge letters of my name were eye catching.

During the months of July, August, September, and October scores of
other volunteer workers walked the streets of the towns in both counties,
ringing doorbells and passing out literature on my behalf. One lady, a resident
of the Palm Springs area, Mrs. Amy Croft, converted her house trailer into a
"Saund for Congress" headquarters. She stocked it with literature, placed large
signs, "Elect Judge Saund Congressman," on both sides, and pulled her trailer
from town to town behind her car. She would go to a town, park her trailer in
a promising spot, and stay there for several days, passing out literature,
putting up placards in prominent places, and talking to as many people as she
could. Then she would move on to the next town. This devoted friend and inspired
worker ended her tour by parking her trailer at the business intersection in
the town of Riverside, the largest city in the district. Soon the effectiveness
of the trailer became evident to my opponent, and Mrs. Croft was asked to move
from that location. But there was no trouble finding another good spot--it
happened to be a lot owned by a well-known Democratic businessman,
Mr. Bill Slape.

Another lady, Mrs. Alice Teeple, left her home in Coachella Valley,
rented an apartment in Riverside, and served as a volunteer in charge of the
Saund-for-Congress headquarters. She was responsible for registering hundreds
of voters and helped to organize the precinct workers for the election-day
effort of getting voters to the polls.

With the exception of four or five small weeklies, out of nearly forty
daily, biweekly, and weekly newspapers, the press was solidly Republican and
solidly opposed to me. The 29th Congressional District was definitely and
historically a safe Republican district, and it was therefore extremely
difficult for me to receive financial support even from the ordinary
pro-Democratic sources. They all sympathized with me sincerely, and they were
honest in their appreciation of my efforts, but when it came to contributing
money, we might as well have asked them to bet a hundred-to-one shot at the
race track.

But if money was lacking, help was not. The volunteer workers, people
such as Mrs. Croft, Mrs. Teeple and Indio businessman, Mr Frank Tebo were
marvelous. In addition to the efforts of the regulars and volunteers, one of the
greatest contributing factors to my success at the polls was the hard work done
by the members of my immediate family. Even before the primary election, and
then throughout the general election campaign, all the members of my
family--my wife, three children, my son-in-law, and my daughter-in-law--were
busy ringing doorbells and passing out literature. One time we calculated that
members of my family had passed out 11,000 Saund circulars before the primary
election in Riverside alone. My wife was teaching school at the time and my
youngest daughter was a student at U.C.L.A. During the summer vacation they
rented an apartment in Riverside and organized and carried on an intensive
campaign of registration. They must have called on thousands and thousands of
homes, and they gathered about them scores of volunteer workers. This proved to
be extremely effective. On weekends they were joined by my son, my eldest
daughter, my son-in-law, and my daughter-in-law.

All of my children are college graduates and so were my daughter-in-law
and son-in-law; together and separately they made a highly favorable
impression. I recall that a few days before the election I was having dinner at
a popular restaurant near Riverside. A prominent Riverside lawyer, whom I had
known only casually, came to my table to say, "Judge, you and your family have
made a big impression on the people of Riverside County and if we don't vote
for you for Congress, it'll be because we want to give President Eisenhower a
Republican Congress."

While he was talking to me another gentleman who had been listening
came up and warmly shook my hand and said, "Now, look here, Judge, don't you
worry. He may vote for anybody, but I'm going to vote for you."

To this day, more than three years after that campaign, people still
come up to me to say, "I met your daughter,". . . or "your son-in-law called at
my house. . . and that is when I decided that I was going to vote for you."
They speak similarly of my wife and my other children who campaigned so
patiently and so well. Thus I have no doubt that one of the biggest
contributing factors in my election was the family's effort on my behalf.

Although 1956 was a presidential election year as well as a year in
which the state of California was to elect a new United States senator, the
main interest of the voters of Riverside and Imperial counties was centered on
the race for congressman of their district. This proved most helpful to me,
since it made it that much easier for me to get a hearing. People everywhere
were eager to meet me personally and learn my views on the issues in the
campaign.

My opponent was positively opposed to any farm subsidy while I believed
(and still do) that farmers need government protection in order to get a fair
share in the economic rewards of our American life. I cited as an example the
fact that while farmers constituted 18 per cent of the population in the United
States, they received only 6 per cent of the total national income. I had
farmed in Imperial County for twenty-five years and I was thoroughly acquainted
with the problems in the Imperial, Coachella, and Palo Verde valleys,
particularly in regard to their vital need for a continuous and controlled
supply of water from the Colorado River.

The main campaign theme of the opposition was that President Eisenhower
would need a Republican Congress in Washington. Coupled with this, Mrs Odlum
hammered at the point that because she knew the President personally, because
she was well acquainted with people in important positions in Washington, and
because of the great influence her husband wielded in financial circles, she
would be able to accomplish big things for her congressional district and be
able to bring new industries into the area.

My answer to this was that I did not claim to have any influence in
Washington, or expect to obtain any special favors for the people of my
district because of my intimate acquaintances with people in high places. And
yet I made it quite plain that I was no Johnny-come-lately in politics. At that
time I was a member of the top leadership of the Democratic party in the state
and had become personally acquainted with many of the leaders in Washington
through my work as a chairman of the Democratic County Central Committee of
Imperial County and a member of the Executive Committee of the Democratic party
of the state of California. If elected to Congress I promised to present my
case to my colleagues forcefully and respectfully; I would let the matters
concerning my district be judged on their own merits and not depend on any
particular favors from anybody. I recalled that every time I'd had to make any
deals with bigger people than myself in my personal life I'd always ended up
with the short end of the stick. My view was that any congressman who expected
to get favors from the big boys in Washington got them only by voting the way
the big boys wanted him to vote, not the way the interests of his district
would lead him to vote.

My opposition, as I have said, made an attempt to use my Indian origin
against me. I decided to turn it to my own advantage and announced on a
television broadcast that if elected I would immediately fly to India and the
Far East. I would appear before the people there and tell them, "You have been
listening to the insidious propaganda of the Communists that there is prejudice
and discrimination in the United States against your people. Look, here I am. I
am a living example of American democracy in action. I was elected by the free
vote of the people in a very conservative district of the state of California
to membership in the most powerful legislative body on the earth. Where else in
the world could that happen?"

Since there are no television stations in Riverside County, in order to
reach the voters in Riverside County I had to buy time on the southern
California networks in Hollywood. This was an expensive business, but I did
manage two fifteen-minute broadcasts. The first time I introduced to the
television audience all of the members of my immediate family.

On the second broadcast I had only my wife with me, and to close my
short television campaign, I said, "If I do not succeed in my objective to be
elected to Congress, I shall know that it will not be because of the place of
my birth or the color of my skin, but because the voters of the 29th
Congressional District decided to send someone better than myself to
Washington."

The real climax of the campaign, however, was a debate between
Mrs. Odlum and myself, held on Halloween night in a junior high-school
auditorium in Riverside, just a few days before the election. The interest in
the campaign was so great that long before the time of the meeting the
auditorium was filled to capacity. The debate was broadcast over a network of
radio stations in Riverside and Imperial counties. As at important political
rallies and sports events, the broadcast started a half-hour before the debate
began, and lasted nearly two hours.

The rules of the debate called for Mrs. Odlum and myself to speak for
thirty minutes and then answer questions from the audience. I conceded to my
opponent the choice of position, and she chose to open and close. She also
chose to devote more than half her time in her opening remarks to expounding
the virtues of President Eisenhower and running down Adlai E. Stevenson.

I decided to deal more directly with the occasion and said:

"I hold in my heart deep feelings of respect for my opponent.

"I have watched her meteoric career to fame within the last twenty
years with pride, along with millions of my fellow Americans.

"I have been thrilled many a time by her great achievements in the
field of aviation. I knew of the fame of Jacqueline Cochran Odlum long before
she became a candidate for Congress, and I wish to say this tonight:
Mrs. Odlum, my respect and admiration for your achievements are second to
none."

I went on to point out that I was not a candidate for the presidency of
the United States, and that it was to be understood that I was a candidate only
for congressman from the 29th Congressional District. The two candidates for
the presidency were perfectly capable, in my opinion, of taking care of their
own campaigns.

As for President Eisenhower's needing a Republican Congress, there was
the fact that during his first term President Eisenhower received more support
from Democrats in Congress than from his own party's congressional leaders. I
also pointed out that President Eisenhower favored federal aid to education;
that President Eisenhower favored revising the Walter-McCarran Act in regard to
immigration. Furthermore, under the President's leadership, Congress had
enacted the Soil Bank Program. I stated that I agreed with Mr. Eisenhower's
views on all of these issues, which was more than could be said for my
opponent, who had taken diametrically opposite positions on each one.

My opponent then dragged the Prime Minister of India, Mr. Nehru, into
the debate, saying that he was leaning toward the Communists and would
certainly like to have a man from India elected to the Congress of the United
States. To this I replied that I was presenting myself to the people of the
29th Congressional District as an American candidate for Congress and not as
anyone owing allegiance to any foreign country.

The debate reached a very large portion of the voters in Riverside and
Imperial counties; some estimated that as many as forty to fifty thousand
people heard it on radio. Furthermore, the entire debate, including the
question-and-answer period, was reprinted in its entirety in the largest daily
newspaper in the district, the Riverside Press Enterprise.

Mrs. Odlum had publicly challenged me to this debate and I must say it
proved extremely helpful to me in my campaign. I could not possibly have
reached that large an audience through any medium within the means of my
campaign committee. She had big billboards throughout the area while I had the
makeshift signs. She had the advantage of a well-organized campaign under the
supervision of professional managers. I could not possibly match the lines of
advertising in the newspapers or the professional quality of her ads. Almost
all the press was emphatically on her side. Thus, reaching this great radio
audience was a big help to me at the right time just a few days before the
election.

After an exciting night of vote counting I came out on top --with a
majority of 4,000 votes out of a total of 110,000 votes cast. Mrs. Odlum
defeated me by a considerable margin in the city of Riverside and carried the
Palm Springs area by an overwhelming majority of 75 per cent. On the other
hand, I received 60 per cent of the votes in Imperial County and close to that
figure in the other farming areas in the district--Palo Verde Valley and
Coachella Valley near Indio. There were nearly five thousand absentee ballots
to be counted yet, and even though my majority was too large to be overcome by
the absentee votes, the election could not be considered official until these
ballots were in. As a result of this tally my opponent gained only 700 more
votes. Thus I was the victor by 3,300 votes--the first native of Asia elected
to the United States Congress.

On the day after the election I received a congratulatory message from
Mrs. Odlum. In reply, I thanked her for her kindness and stated that it had
been an honor to have her as my opponent.